Cougars again lose to Mustangs, 62-40
1/13/23: The Cottage School Cougars played host to the GIAA Fulton Science Academy Mustangs on Friday night. The two schools played back in November and once again Fulton Science came out on top. FSA took advantage of careless TCS passing leading to fastbreak baskets. The Mustangs went on two big runs to all but put the game away, 62-40.
With just under a minute left in the second period, TCS were only down 28-21. But in those final forty-five seconds Fulton Science scored eight quick points off Cottage turnovers and at halftime the Cougars found themselves down 36-21.
This lack of focus, combined with poor field goal shooting percentage continued and was a recipe for disaster in the third stanza. The Mustangs outscored Cottage 17-2 in this frame, ending any sort of Cougar comeback. Coach Briggs spoke to the boys during the quarter break. “We have a choice. We can decide to further embarrass ourselves and lose by 50 or we can play together, with great effort and focus and lose respectfully by 15 or 20. Which is it going to be?”
The Cougars decided to put everything on the floor and made a run. Cottage outscored FSA 17-9 in the final period and lost 62-40. Hopefully this gave some confidence for the team going into next week.
Both teams played evenly for the first fifteen minutes of action. After the first period FSA was ahead 16-10 and midway through the second stanza, TCS were only down four points, 21-17.
Cottage moves to 10-8 overall and will travel back to Al Falah next Thursday (1/19) in their final game before Homecoming weekend.
Game Notes:
Braden Kramer led the team with 18 points. He also added 3 steals and 4 rebounds.
Andrew Dorsey put in 7 points and pulled down 7 rebounds. He also dished out 3 assists.
Jackson Barnes hauled in 9 boards, had 3 assists, 2 steals, and 5 points.
Jack Kane grabbed 10 rebounds to go with 6 points.
The Cougars finished with a whopping 27 turnovers! They know they must improve in this area to make any kind of run in the AAC playoffs in four weeks.
